"Everyone feels at ease with Rankin, so the story goes. And because they trust him, we are privy to that ‘special’shot... Bowie, Bjork, Debbie Harry, Damien Hirst – all have been photographed a million times before, yet all have queued to grimace or giggle at his lens… "‘people look like they’re having fun with him." - Time Out, 2000

"Rankin’s photographs all seem a long way from the formal, flattering images created by previous generations of society portrait painters: people staring into the camera as though gazing through a mirror; Claudia Schiffer breaking up during a fashion shoot... Or the Spice Girls turning their bottoms on the world." - Weekend Magazine,

”Most celebrities hate most photo shoots. The strain between their elevated autonomy and the boring, disempowering process of being made to pose, renders the celebrity portrait session a minefield of ego and petulance. In addition, the ‘celebrity’ is usually the only person in the room not getting paid. The ability to locate something real in a star is therefore a major tribute to the psychological finesse of a photographer.” - Daily Mail, 2000

Consider then how unique British photographer Rankin must be to have got round the defence systems of famous faces as diverse as those collected in his thought-provoking document of UK and US stars: CeleBritation.